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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Samsung Note 4 & Alpha Teardown

Samsung released their latest 5.7inch flagship Galaxy Note 4 ahead of
schedule in South Korea, and then followed it up with the release of
the Samsung Galaxy Alpha in Europe. The Galaxy Alpha with its 4.7 inch
display is Samsung's thinnest and first metal-framed device in their
Galaxy product line to date. Both devices are the Samsung alternatives
to Apple's iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 phones released on September 19.

Figure 1: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 & Galaxy Alpha

Both the Note 4 SM-N910K and Galaxy Alpha SM-G850F relied on
Samsung's own Exynos application processors, the Exynos 5433 and the
Exynos 5430 respectively.

Unlike the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices which both used
the same baseband processor, the Qualcomm MDM9525M, Samsung brings the
Intel X-Gold PMB9933 XG726G into the Alpha, and Samsung’s own Shannon
303 into the Galaxy Note 4. There are rumors the basebands will be
different in the models released for the US market.

In the Galaxy Note 4, Samsung used many of their Shannon chipsets to
support other functions such as power management, RF, and one IC who's
function we have not yet determined. TechInsights first spotted Shannon
in
the Samsung Galaxy Lite SGH-T399 in 2013 and again in the recently
released Samsung S5 Mini SM-G800F. However in those devices, Shannon
was only used for power management and the RF transceivers. With the
addition of so many of the Shannon ICs in a flagship like the Galaxy
Note 4, it would appear Samsung is expanding Shannon into becoming an
entire design solution.

Overall, Samsung takes the majority of the design wins in the Galaxy
Note 4 with the Shannon ICs and other Samsung components such as the
Exynos 5433 processor. Both the Galaxy Alpha and Note 4 use S3FWRN for
the NFC controller, S5C72C for image processing, as well as the Samsung
memory ICs.

Cypress Semiconductor takes its usual spot in both devices,
supporting the lower two touch buttons. In the Galaxy Note 4 our analyst
found the CY8CMBR3155-LQXI capacitive touch controller, part of the
Cypress Semiconductor CapSense portfolio.

Figure 3: Cypress Semiconductor Touch Controller in Galaxy Note 4

Unknown WiFi / Bluetooth Module

It is unknown which manufacturer is supporting the WiFi / Bluetooth /
ANT+ features in either the Galaxy Alpha or Galaxy Note 4. Both of the
phones have a similar multi-die module found in other Samsung Galaxy S5
phones where the the WiFI / Bluetooth controller ICs were embedded.

Design Win Surprise

Our analysts found two different STMicroelectronics touchscreen
controllers in the Display / Touchscreen subsystems of the Samsung
Galaxy Alpha and the Galaxy Note 4. We suspect these are both two-die
packages and will confirm it in our Deep Dive analysis of both products
in the coming weeks.

CoG Quick Estimates

All four devices are currently in process for a full Deep Dive
analysis. The Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus reports are expected to
be completed at the end of October, 2014. The Samsung reports are
expected to be available at the beginning of December.

Displays and Touchscreens

The final cost of the Galaxy Note 4 is estimated to be higher than
the iPhone 6 Plus. This is greatly due to the higher priced Display /
Touchscreen subsystem cost of the Galaxy Note 4. The Super AMOLED
display of the Note 4 has a cost premium which increases as the panel
size increases. Also impacting the costs of the Note 4 display is higher
pixel count.

The Takeaways

An initial design win observation of the Galaxy Alpha, Samsung tapped
themselves to support applications with the Exynos 5430 with support
from their own memory ICs. For envelope power tracking. instead of using
the R2AA217C from the reclusive R2 Semiconductor (as they did in the
Samsung Galaxy S5 mini), Samsung used the RFMD RF8081A. Other than
finding STMicroelectronics supporting the main touchscreen controller
function, there were not any significant design changes from other
Samsung Galaxy phones.
The Galaxy Note 4 did surprise us with the STMicroelectronics touch
solution and with the number of ICs from Samsung's Shannon chipset. The
Shannon ICs and the number of additional Samsung ICs seen in the Galaxy
Note 4 may suggest Samsung is not only hard at work at designing their
own total design solution for mobile devices, but they are also willing
to use their own designs in their high-end, flagship smartphones.